Crime Writers! Looking for an unusual way to kill off a particularly annoying character? Perhaps a Mary-Sue, a little too pure-as-the-driven-snow to be fun? How about making them more interesting by subjecting them to… ….DEATH BY SNOWDROP. In this blog, I’ll often talk of the joys of edible flowers, but here’s one I don’t recommend. In France this feisty…
Event Apples
When I first took the plot I’m on now, I was keen to get a row of cordon fruit trees in as soon as possible. I took up an offer by Pomona Fruits for a mini orchard, and, to give it its due, the six trees have grown strongly and all, apart from the Victoria…
What I really use my shed for…
Okay, so here’s the thing. My allotment site doesn’t have a loo. Come to think of it it doesn’t have a shop or any other facilities, but the loo’s the main issue. On my old plot it was so bad I’d have to work loo breaks into the day, setting out twenty minutes before I…
Event Number One, 2016: Forced Rhubarb
I’ve never known garden-forced rhubarb this early – 30th Jan – before, but then I’ve never known a winter so mild. I put the forcer over the burgeoning buds back in late November- normally they’re not even showing ’til January. It’s a rather lovely terracotta forcer I bought for home, but my garden faces north-east; rhubarb there…
Cold outside; Chilli inside
It’s nearly the end of January and I still haven’t sown my chilli seeds. I need to get my skates on, but have decided to wait one day longer. My compost has been sitting outside in the cold so, to prevent any possible seed-rot, I’ve popped a couple of filled trays in the propagator to take the chill…
Safety First
Boring, I know, but working a plot on a steep hill with paths that can be very slippery even in summer, I’ve discovered the necessity for a first aid kit on site the hard way. It doesn’t have to be Dr Mopp’s entire bag, but a small, well-labelled tin, on a high shelf away from…
Never Garden without Tea
Actually, that should read ‘never garden without tea and cake’ but there are the odd, occasional times when I’ve not baked and have to make do with digestives. I don’t see the point in not making event gardening an event in itself. I know plenty of plotholders who just come down to dig/weed/hose and then…
Skirret
“The sweetest, whitest and most pleasant of roots,” raves gentleman gardener John Worlidge, in his 1677 Systema Horticulturae Or The Art of Gardening. “Pleasant and wholesome,” agrees Culpeper’s Complete Herbal. Yet the subtle sweetness of the modest skirret, noted by Pliny as the Emperor Tiberius’s favourite and a mainstay of Tudor tables, is all but…
Les Hortillonages
Sebastian Faulks’s trench warfare epic “Birdsong” begins gently enough. Sketching a world soon to be lost in the carnage of war, Faulks chooses an extraordinary subculture within a sleepy Picardie town-centre as a cipher for French petite-ville normality. Amiens’ Hortillonnages – or floating gardens, are, even at the time Birdsong is set, wonders to be…
Backs to the Land, Girls!
1939. The world is on the brink. Mr Hitler hasn’t actually invaded anything yet, but it’s not looking good in Poland. The men in grey suits are worried. How will old Blighty survive if the lads have to fight? They look at each other warily. There is one option. It’s not ideal; the chaps…
The Event Gardener 